Donald Trump has said that ‘Alex Pretti’s stock has gone way down’ after a video showing the ICU nurse spitting on and kicking an ICE vehicle emerged.
The footage shows an altercation between the 37-year-old and federal officers on January 13 in Minneapolis, 11 days before he was fatally shot by a Border Patrol agent in broad daylight.
The video shows Pretti yelling at agents, spitting at their unmarked vehicle and kicking the tail light out as it moves away.
Moments later, a heavily armed agent exited the vehicle and tackled Pretti to the ground as other officers crowded around and sprayed pepper gas at surrounding people.
In a post on his social media platform Truth Social on Friday, Trump described Pretti as an ‘Agitator and, perhaps, insurrectionist’.
The US president wrote: ‘Alex Pretti’s stock has gone way down with the just released video of him screaming and spitting in the face of a very calm and under control ICE Officer, and then crazily kicking in a new and very expensive government vehicle, so hard and violent, in fact, that the taillight broke off in pieces.
‘It was quite a display of abuse and anger, for all to see, crazed and out of control. The ICE Officer was calm and cool, not an easy thing to be under those circumstances! MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN.’
The altercation between Pretti and federal agents on January 13 occurred just four blocks away from where 37-year-old Renee Good had been killed by an ICE officer the week before.
Alex Pretti, left, was involved in an altercation with federal immigration agents 11 days before he was killed, a video released Wednesday showed
Alex Pretti, 37, was shot dead by a Border Patrol agent in broad daylight in Minneapolis on Saturday during a targeted immigration enforcement operation
In a post on his social media platform Truth Social on Friday, Trump described Pretti as an ‘Agitator and, perhaps, insurrectionist’
The January 13 altercation was captured in a pair of videos that showed Pretti shouting shouting ‘f*** you!’ at the federal officers and struggling with them.
He referred to one of the agents as a ‘pepper spray b****’ and ‘f***ing trash’ as they got into their SUVs to leave the premises.
The sound of shattered plastic can be heard as Pretti kicks out one of the tail lights of the Ford Expedition they were driving.
Multiple armed agents then converged on Pretti and forced him to the ground.
His winter coat came off and he managed to break free from their grasp and scurry away.
Pretti turned his back to the camera and what appeared to be handgun was visible in his waistband. At no point do the videos show Pretti reaching for the gun and it is unclear whether the federal agents saw it.
The new footage of Pretti is under review by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), a spokesperson said. It is unclear if any of the officers present during the January 13 incident were also there when Pretti was killed.
The new videos immediately rekindled the national debate about Pretti’s death. Donald Trump Jr., the president’s eldest son, posted one of the videos on X and commented: ‘Just a peaceful legal observer.’
But Steve Schleicher, an attorney representing Pretti’s family, hit back, saying in a statement Wednesday: ‘A week before Alex was gunned down in the street – despite posing no threat to anyone – he was violently assaulted by a group of ICE agents.
‘Nothing that happened a full week before could possibly have justified Alex’s killing at the hands of ICE on January 24.’
Schleicher, a partner at the Minneapolis firm Maslon, was the prosecutor who helped convict Derek Chauvin of George Floyd‘s murder in 2020.
ICU nurse Alex Pretti was shot and killed while being detained by ICE agents on Saturday
Footage showed Pretti being forcefully taken to the ground by officers after he kicked out the tail light of their vehicle during a Minneapolis protest on January 13
Last weekend’s fatal shooting occurred on a sidewalk next to the street where Pretti had been filming immigration officers.
He was carrying a handgun for which he had a legal permit and videos of the killing appeared to show one officer remove the weapon before two others opened fire.
In the footage captured by bystanders, one officer pushed and pepper-sprayed Pretti, who was then forced to the ground by half a dozen DHS cops.
One spotted Pretti’s weapon, which he was licensed to carry, and shouted, ‘He’s got a gun.’ Two officers then opened fire on Pretti as he lay on the ground, killing him.
Trump administration officials quickly reacted, saying Pretti had approached officers with a gun and attacked them.
The altercation and shooting showed Pretti never brandished his gun and didn’t assault any officer. He was holding his phone when he was shot in the back while on the ground.
US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) said Thursday that two agents involved in the fatal shooting of the American citizen had been placed on administrative leave.
The move follows public outcry across the US and calls from lawmakers in both parties to remove the secretary of the DHS, Kristi Noem.
The ICE agent who fatally shot Good in Minneapolis on January 7 was also placed on administrative leave, pending an investigation.
Gregory Bovino, the border patrol commander who has become the public face of the immigration crackdown in Minneapolis, was pulled out of the city following the controversial killings.
Nicknamed ‘Little Napoleon’ by his critics, Bovino was swapped out for the border czar, Tom Homan, before Trump announced he intended to ‘de-escalate’ in Minneapolis, where DHS has been carrying out its Operation Metro Surge since December 1.
Former president Barack Obama was one of the many public figures to condemn Pretti’s death, calling the incident a ‘heartbreaking tragedy’.
‘It should also be a wake-up call to every American, regardless of party, that many of our core values as a nation are increasingly under assault,’ he said in a statement alongside his wife Michelle.
‘Federal law enforcement and immigration agents have a tough job. But Americans expect them to carry out their duties in a lawful, accountable way, and to work with, rather than against, state and local officials to ensure public safety.’
Former president Bill Clinton said the shooting was ‘unacceptable’ and claimed ‘the people in charge have lied to us’.
‘Over the course of a lifetime, we face only a few moments where the decisions we make and the actions we take will shape our history for years to come. This is one of them,’ he wrote on X.
‘If we give our freedoms away after 250 years, we might never get them back.’
After seeing videos of top Trump administration officials suggesting their son was a ‘domestic terrorist’ who attacked the officers who shot him, Pretti’s family issued a written statement describing themselves as both heartbroken and angry.
‘The sickening lies told about our son by the administration are reprehensible and disgusting,’ the family’s statement said.
They added that videos showed Pretti was not holding a gun when he was tackled by federal agents, but holding his phone with one hand and using the other to shield a woman who was being pepper-sprayed.
‘Please get the truth out about our son. He was a good man,’ they urged in their statement.
The National Rifle Association (NRA) – typically aligned with Trump – also joined other gun lobbying and advocacy groups in calling for a ‘full investigation’ into the killing.
In a statement, it said: ‘Responsible public voices should be awaiting a full investigation, not making generalisations and demonising law-abiding citizens.’
An officer pulls Pretti back onto the street and down onto his knees after the ICU nurse kicked out a taillight in the January 13 altercation
The new videos from the week prior to Pretti’s shooting came from multiple sources. One was taken by Max Shapiro, a witness who filmed the interaction. The second was by a crew for The News Movement, an online media outlet.
Shapiro, an attorney in Minneapolis, recounted in an interview Wednesday that he saw over a Signal chat that immigration enforcement was in the area. Driving over, Shapiro parked half a block from officers and got out.
‘The observers were pretty distraught and screaming,’ he said, adding that the officers began trying to get the crowd back, but their directives were largely drowned out in whistles and shouts.
‘He got slammed to the ground pretty hard,’ Shapiro said, describing how officers tackled Pretti to the ground before he managed to escape.
‘I’m no immigration policy expert,’ he added. ‘But there has to be a better way to go about this.’